The Good Soldier Å vejk

[Garpal Gumnut]

If there are any fans of this great hero of the First World War, I would welcome comments.

My tattered copy of the book of his exploits written by Jaroslav Hašek has been just rebound by Dharma and I.

His anti-imperialist, anti-militarist exploits are a joy to read.

If you are unfamiliar with this work I would urge you to buy a copy. My doctor even suggested I read it when I went to him recently with a recurrence of the blues, to cheer me up at the carnage that the 4th Mrs Gumnut has threatened to wrought upon my wealth.

gg

 

[Purple XS2]

If there are any fans of this great hero of the First World War, I would welcome comments....

A national hero in the Czech Republic, Schweik (spellings in English translations vary) is a hero for the ages.

A long time since I read the novel, but the scene where Schweik volunteers for army service at the outbreak of war is unforgettable.

As for Schweik's exploits as a breeder of pedigree dogs ....

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

A national hero in the Czech Republic, Schweik (spellings in English translations vary) is a hero for the ages.

A long time since I read the novel, but the scene where Schweik volunteers for army service at the outbreak of war is unforgettable.

As for Schweik's exploits as a breeder of pedigree dogs ....

Yes Schweik's enlistment spelt the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Czech novelist, humorist, prankster, natural storyteller, and journalist, creator of the satiric masterpiece The Good Soldier Schweik. Hašek was with Franz Kafka one of the key figures of literary Prague, but more colorful and blasphemous. Essentially Hašek's humor drew from the tradition of earthy Rabelaisian satire, which took aim at social institutions. Once Hašek was prevented from throwing himself off the Cech's Bridge (Cechuv most), he founded a political party called The Party of Slight Progress Within the Limits of Law, and spent the cash collected from this activity in his local pub.

--And so on that memorable day there appeared on the Prague streets a moving example of loyalty. An old woman pushing before her a bathchair, in which there sat a man in an army cap with a finely polished Imperial badge and waving his crutches. And in his buttonhole there shone the gay flowers of a recruit.
--And this man, waving his crutches again and again, shouted out to the streets of Prague: "To Belgrade, to Belgrade!" (from The Good Soldier Å vejk)

Jaroslav HaÅ¡ek was born in Prague, the son of a failed high-school teacher. His father died from drink when HaÅ¡ek was thirteen. When his widowed mother could do nothing with her son, a pharmacist, Mr. Kokoska, eventually took an interest in him. HaÅ¡ek was educated at the Prague Commercial Academy, from which he graduated at the age of nineteen. He got a job at the Slava Bank, but was fired – he was already drinking heavily.

Early in his career HaÅ¡ek was active as anarchist and published widely in Czech political journals. In 1907 he became an editor of the anarchist magazine Komuna. Trying to change his life style, HaÅ¡ek married Jarmila Mayerová, without much success. He was engaged in dogstealing, and forged pedigrees for mongrel dogs – like Schweik later. As editor of the magazine Svet zvírat (The World of Animals) he created brand-new animals and occasionally plagiarized articles directly from German magazines. After the suicidal incident at Cech's Bridge, HaÅ¡ek spent a short time in a mental hospital, which again gave him material for Schweik's adventures. With Jarmila HaÅ¡ek had a son, Richard, but she left him soon after and went back to live with her parents. His home broken, he took a room in a brothel, U Valsu.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hasek.htm

gg

 

[zenny]

If there are any fans of this great hero of the First World War, I would welcome comments.

My tattered copy of the book of his exploits written by Jaroslav Hašek has been just rebound by Dharma and I.

His anti-imperialist, anti-militarist exploits are a joy to read.

If you are unfamiliar with this work I would urge you to buy a copy. My doctor even suggested I read it when I went to him recently with a recurrence of the blues, to cheer me up at the carnage that the 4th Mrs Gumnut has threatened to wrought upon my wealth.

gg

Švejk and his spiritual father, Jaroslav Hašek, have been claimed by various ideological camps and their characters have been assassinated by various "livingers", people making a good living analyzing and interpreting both. The literary critics and various other "knowledge workers" have produced tons of books, articles, essays and such to take the life out of Švejk. For the best collection of information about Švejk go to SvejkCentral-dot-com.

And don't buy a copy of the book until you learn the difference between the 1972 Parrott version and the current "Chicago version".

"Å vejk represents one of the most unique and successful survival strategies ever conceived by man." So listen up!

 

[zenny]

Schweik (spellings in English translations vary) is a hero for the ages.

Why not spell the name correctly? Isn't that what we do for everybody else? For those of you who don't know how to make the appropriate diacritical mark over the "S", Svejk is good enough. For those of you who can at least copy and paste, here's the real deal: Å vejk. And the pronunciation is "sh-vake". That's why in the German translation, the first translation of the book, the "Å " became "Sch" and the German "v" producing the English "f" sound was changed to the "w" which exists in the Czech ABC only to accommodate words of foreign origin. So to spell the most famous, beloved and reviled Czech book in the German way is a multiple insult to the people who had been under the German domination for 300 years.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Švejk and his spiritual father, Jaroslav Hašek, have been claimed by various ideological camps and their characters have been assassinated by various "livingers", people making a good living analyzing and interpreting both. The literary critics and various other "knowledge workers" have produced tons of books, articles, essays and such to take the life out of Švejk. For the best collection of information about Švejk go to SvejkCentral-dot-com.

And don't buy a copy of the book until you learn the difference between the 1972 Parrott version and the current "Chicago version".

"Å vejk represents one of the most unique and successful survival strategies ever conceived by man." So listen up!

Why not spell the name correctly? Isn't that what we do for everybody else? For those of you who don't know how to make the appropriate diacritical mark over the "S", Svejk is good enough. For those of you who can at least copy and paste, here's the real deal: Å vejk. And the pronunciation is "sh-vake". That's why in the German translation, the first translation of the book, the "Å " became "Sch" and the German "v" producing the English "f" sound was changed to the "w" which exists in the Czech ABC only to accommodate words of foreign origin. So to spell the most famous, beloved and reviled Czech book in the German way is a multiple insult to the people who had been under the German domination for 300 years.

Zenny, as Josef Å vejk sleeps the sleep of a good anarchist, his life work continues.

May I refer you to a web page.

www.zenny.com

I do hope you don't have too many dogs Zenny.

gg

 

[wayneL]

Why not spell the name correctly? Isn't that what we do for everybody else? For those of you who don't know how to make the appropriate diacritical mark over the "S", Svejk is good enough. For those of you who can at least copy and paste, here's the real deal: Å vejk. And the pronunciation is "sh-vake". That's why in the German translation, the first translation of the book, the "Å " became "Sch" and the German "v" producing the English "f" sound was changed to the "w" which exists in the Czech ABC only to accommodate words of foreign origin. So to spell the most famous, beloved and reviled Czech book in the German way is a multiple insult to the people who had been under the German domination for 300 years.

Thanks for the insight zenny. Anglicizing foreign names is always problematic.

Do we use the closest English letters and crucify the pronunciation? Or change to phonetic spelling?

Czech is particularly problematic for us eg Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém

 

[Jomar]

Most of the early translations of Švejk suffered from the lack of international typefonts, but the two most recent translations of Švejk into English (Parrot and Sadlon) are faithful to the Czech spelling. And with computers and the unicode character set there is absolutely no excuse anymore for mutilating Czech words. I guess a lot of the confusion here comes from the fact that most early translations of Švejk was done from German, in which Grete Reiner methodically germanized geographical and personal names. Even the dubious translation of the title segement: "dobrý voják-> brave Soldat" has spread to many languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Dutch, Ukrainian).